Thursday, March 24, 2011

I just finished watching the 1988 film Young Guns, starring Emilio Estevez, Kiefer Sutherland, Lou Diamond Phillips and man of the hour (one hour ago) Charlie Sheen. I was scanning the film for the intro portion of Warren G and Nate Dogg's "Regulate". I found everything besides the "regulators mount up!" snippet. That kinda pissed me off. I'm still not sure if that particular quote was directly lifted from the film. Bottom line: I hope that doesn't mean I'll have to watch the movie again... Ugh.

Anyways, as I was researching (read: Googling) the film and its connection to "Regulate", I came across this short article on Stereogum.com, written by Death Cab for Cutie's Ben Gibbard. The article was written three years ago. I bring this up because, well, it's awful. Awful enough to point it out three years later. Putting aside the fact that Nate Dogg's passing still stings like a raw wound, Gibbard lost a ton of respect from me thanks to this steaming pile of shorse hit (bold emphasis mine):

My girlfriend and I were running errands around Seattle a couple weeks ago when this came on the radio during KUBE 93’s “old school lunch hour” (it’s kinda weird to think of 1994 as being “old school” but I guess it was almost 15 years ago). It quickly became brutally apparent that “Regulate” has fallen into that unfortunate category of hip hop songs that have not aged well at all. Here are some conversation snippets from the three and half minutes that followed:

• “Who are these ‘Regulators’? This guy talking at the top makes them sound like some sort of organized vigilanty group. Kinda like a hip hop guardian angels or something.”• “Warren G sounds pretty wimpy on this track. That’s saying something coming from me. If Nate Dogg didn’t show up, I fell pretty confident that even I could jack him.”• “What the fuck does ‘the rhythm is the bass and the bass is the treble’ mean?!”• “I think that if I just shot a bunch of guys the last thing on my mind would be chasing girls. I mean, that would kinda put a damper on the rest of the evening.”• “Is it just me or can Nate Dogg not really sing? That ‘Eastside motel’ line sounded kinda rotten.”• “Oh man, ‘Pump Up The Volume’ has aged better than this thing.”

My veins are pulsating with rage right about now... Fuck you, Ben Gibbard.

P.S. This post hate rant had nothing to do with the fact that I'm still bitter about you marrying stealing Zooey Deschanel. Okay, just a little bit.